Poll of the Day > Do you have a Ring camera inside your home? Might want to rethink that.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/police_ring_privacy/

Cop warrant orders Ring to cough up footage from inside this guy's home

Last year, around the Thanksgiving holiday, Ohio businessman Michael Larkin received a request for video from his Amazon Ring security system from Hamilton city police.

He complied, providing video from his doorbell camera that was stored on Ring's servers. After balking at further demands, he subsequently learned that authorities had bypassed the need to get his consent by presenting Ring with a search warrant for video from several of his Ring cameras, including one that covered an indoor area of his home.

According to Politico, Larkin received a notice from Ring that the tech biz had received a warrant and was required to turn over video from numerous cameras, without giving the owner with any say in the matter.

The police reportedly sought neighborhood surveillance as part of a drug investigation in the US city. Larkin's video-enabled Ring doorbell and other recording devices, they believed, might have captured information that would be helpful with their investigation.

The City of Hamilton Police Department did not respond to requests seeking comment about the scope of its search warrant.

Larkin evidently did not end up providing any video from inside his home because that particular camera was disconnected during the period covered under the warrant.

But the incident has renewed concern among privacy advocates and lawmakers that Ring allows police to outsource surveillance in a way that evades oversight, diminishes the public's privacy protections, and deprives product owners of the ability to make decisions about the video their devices have captured.

Many of these concerns were articulated in a New York University School of Law research paper published last May. The paper explains, "Ring is one part of a growing, largely unregulated, market for 'lateral surveillance' private individuals surveilling one another. Police increasingly are leveraging privately-owned surveillance devices, from internet-connected cameras to automated license plate readers. Lateral surveillance may at times have security benefits, but it also has real costs, as this report endeavors to make clear."

Ring makes several home security products that record video and store the files remotely on corporate servers. For the past several years, privacy groups and lawmakers have challenged how the company handles customers' surveillance video, which gets stored up to 60 days by default in the US, or up to 180 days at most, absent legal orders to the contrary.

According to Ring's most recent transparency report, the company received 1,939 search warrants during the second half of 2022, along with 281 subpoenas, six court orders, 18 non-US information requests, and 2,031 requests to preserve data. The company says it notified users in response to 691 information requests, stating that it does so unless prohibited or presented with a clear indication of illegal conduct.

Ring also may skip notifications to owners when there's an emergency. In response to an inquiry last year from Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), Ring revealed that it shared user recordings without any notice to customers 11 times in 2022, per its policy on exigent or emergency requests.

A Ring spokesperson told The Register, "Ring carefully reviews every search warrant and other legal process we receive when determining how to respond. We do not disclose customer information in response to government demands, such as a search warrant, unless were legally required to comply."

"Our response depends on the information requested and whether we have that information. We review all legal documents served on us, and if we have reason to believe that a demand is overbroad, we question the request and may ask law enforcement to suggest a more limited production of information."

Ring's spokesperson also said that the company implemented end-to-end encryption on nearly all of its devices in January 2021. So in theory Larkin could have denied Ring's ability to hand his video to police if he activated encryption.

However, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation has observed, customers have to choose to encrypt their stored surveillance footage because encryption is not enabled by default.

The Register asked Ring whether anyone could cite any example of being unable to respond to a warrant because a customer had encrypted the data, and what percentage of customers activate encryption. Ring's spokesperson said, "I don't have that for you."

I have a Blink brand camera that I set up to watch some house wrens nesting but it's currently turned off since the nest has been vacated. I'm sure Blink is no better than Ring in regards to privacy and information security.

No and if I ever felt the need for such a security system that shit will record to my own hard drives, thanks. I imagine being connected to the internet those things are vulnerable to hacking as well. gtfo

I have three outside (Front door, back door, and garage). I would never set one up inside my home. I even make sure to close the shutter on all my webcams when I am not using them.

Dikitain posted...

I have three outside (Front door, back door, and garage). I would never set one up inside my home. I even make sure to close the shutter on all my webcams when I am not using them.

Same I would use them outdoors only. I have no desire to record anything with them. Basically use them to watch animals in my yard.

Just one, outside the front door. Very unexciting footage; surely a detriment to any agent tasked with reviewing it.

probably part of an agreement with the company that footage can be turned over, that the customer didn't read

I got a Google Nest doorbell cam instead of a Ring because I read a lot of bad things about how the data from the Ring is handled

Jen0125 posted...

I got a Google Nest doorbell cam instead of a Ring because I read a lot of bad things about how the data from the Ring is handled

I'd be profoundly surprised if Google is appreciably better. Everyone's evil.

I use the $25 Walmart camera so that I can get notified when packages arrive. (The one made by "Merkury Innovations"). It's not weather resistant, so it's mounted on the inside of a window, pointed at my front door. I gouged the mic out with a needle so that it can't record any audio. The ToS for the thing literally states that they'll hand over your data to whoever wants it, which is why I would never place a cloud-based camera in an spot where it can view the inside of my home. I don't need police and the Chinese government watching me while I masturbate. The only thing they can see is my doormat.

adjl posted...

I'd be profoundly surprised if Google is appreciably better. Everyone's evil.

I would be too but what I researched outwardly they are not doing the same as Amazon currently. At least not out in the open. But mine is an outdoor camera anyways. I'd never film inside my house.

Aren't those things specifically made for outside your home?

AltOmega2 posted...

Aren't those things specifically made for outside your home?

They make indoor ones. Advertised for like watching pets and children.

I got nothin to hide

Yeah, I only have cams that record to my own servers. That's like having an "alexa" in your house. You think Bezos ain't recorded EVERYTHING you say? It's ok to unplug.

Fuck tha police

DarkMinun posted...

Fuck tha police

yeah, we don't want them catching drug dealers!!!

Only weirdos put them inside the house.

kind9 posted...

No and if I ever felt the need for such a security system that shit will record to my own hard drives, thanks. I imagine being connected to the internet those things are vulnerable to hacking as well. gtfo

On the one hand, this.
On the other hand, police have plenty of experience wiping their own hard drives of surveillance footage when what is recorded would contradict their statements.
If I get a security system, it'd be to protect myself from both criminals and cops. Way too many wrong address no-knock raids in this country, not to mention "SWATing" incidents, like that poor victim in Kansas.
And if you have physical hard drives, it's a lot easier for them to get rid of the evidence after the fact, while as uploaded to the internet, they can't.

How hard is it to find/setup a camera that isn't connected to someone else's server? That's the core issue right there.

Krow_Incarnate posted...

How hard is it to find/setup a camera that isn't connected to someone else's server? That's the core issue right there.

Probably impossible unless you buy an old shitty camera. Either way there's no reason to ever put one inside a house.

Krow_Incarnate posted...

How hard is it to find/setup a camera that isn't connected to someone else's server? That's the core issue right there.

I think they still sell systems like this at Costco. It comes with a bunch of cameras and the recorder.

adjl posted...

I'd be profoundly surprised if Google is appreciably better. Everyone's evil.

Google is probably better, they would have a legal process set up to deal with this to protect their public image so that the police can't just "ask" for anyone's footage.

That said after seeing this I wouldn't do online security cameras unless I set up the servers personally.